


Story Time

by SilentSiren



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Her Name is Root
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7701760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentSiren/pseuds/SilentSiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Machine and co get together for a Christmas dinner to regale each other with their heroic stories and close encounters.</p><p>(Formally titled 'Whipped'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betad, all mistakes are mine, uhhh, might be made into a more complete story if I feel like writing? (First POI fic.)

“I said keep your hands up!” The man yelled, spittle flying from his mouth as he spoke, punctuating his sentence with a step forward toward Root. He leaned towards his left with his arm outstretched and the gun he held shook minutely.

“Alright Henry,” Root rose her hands again up at shoulder height, a weight fluttering around before settling in her stomach, “You’re the man in charge.”

“Who do you work for? How long have you been spying on me?!”

“I don’t work for anyone, I’m-”

“BULLSHIT! Don’t- don’t lie to me! Who do you work for? The government?!”

Root scoffed and dropped her arms lower with a smirk, “Hardly, they want me dead even more than they want you dead.”

“So they are spying on me!”

“You and the whole state Henry, I’m here to stop them, I-”

“No! You’re lying, you’re here to kill me and I wanna know why!”

“Henry we don’t have time for this, I’m here to help you.” Root took a step forward, reaching her arm out to take her gun but Henry re-adjusted his aim to her head.

“N-no! Move back! You’re trying to confuse me. Stand on the ledge!”

Root swallowed, feeling the chilling wind whip around her on the open rooftop while she slowly stepped backwards. This wasn’t part of the plan, this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, “A team of agents are downstairs storming this building. They will be here in approximately 12 minutes and there is no way out of the building. I was led here, to you, to save you but I can only do that if you let me.”

“If I’m going down then I’m taking as many of you with me as I can!”

“I’m not one of them.”

“That’s enough! SHUT UP!” Henry gripped his head  suddenly, groaning he hits his temples with the heels of his hands. Root takes the opportunity and slowly moves towards him but he catches sight of her and straightens immediately, “NO! GET BACK!” Root does as he says and maintains eye contact. “Stop looking at me!” He demands.

“It’s hard to kill someone while you’re being watched isn’t it?”

“Shut up and turn around!”

Root does, hands slightly raised and outwards by her side as if she were preparing to fly from the tall buildings rooftop and sail across the pinking skyline. She tried to mentally prepare for what might happen.

_I really don’t know what’s going to happen when we pull the trigger._

She closes her eyes as the memory flashes into her mind.

_Dammit Root!_

_CRACK!_

She flinches.

Henry yelps.

 _Crack! Crack!_ “Tsk tsk tsk,” a tongue clicks.  

Root opens her eyes, surprised to not be falling or in agony and turns her head to the left to better hear what’s going on.

“Who the hell are you?!” Henry demands.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with guns?”

Root smiles when she recognises the voice and turns around, the sight before her leaving her stomach’s flutter to make a comeback. Shaw, grey tank top, dark pants and black boots shoulder width apart stands by the fire escape door with her arms out by her sides holding a whip in each hand.

Shaw’s smirk tells Root that’s she’s enjoying herself as she flicks the whips around her body in a demonstration of skill, leaning her body around the whips to make sure she doesn’t hit herself. She makes her way forward, eyes firmly on Henry as he stutters and tries to keep both women in his sights.

“Stop or I’ll shoot her!” He warns, pointing the gun at Root again.

“With what gun?” Shaw asks deadpan as ever and with a swing, the whip shoots forward faster than Root can see and with another loud _crack!_ Henry drops the gun with a cry of pain, grabbing his hand and jumping around as if it will stop the intense throbbing in the appendage. But Shaw isn’t done, her body continues the motions, _crack! crack!_ and the man is on the ground, hollowing in pain flat on his back cradling his cheek with one hand while the other is held protectively against his chest. The gun is safely out of his reach.

Shaw moves directly over him and grabs both of his hands, using one of the whips to tie his hands together, “Come on you big baby, get up,” She growls.

The other woman is rooted to the spot in awe, a burn completing its rise through her body at her ears at the thoughts that have taken over her mind. It’s not until a sharp sting in her ankle that she stops thinking about shoving Shaw against the nearest wall. Her eyes were already on Shaw but now she blinks and _really_ sees her.

“You should keep that,” Root remarks, a sly smirk sliding into place, “Where’d you find it?”

“Gift shop down stairs,” Shaw responds, scanning the nearby rooftops and hauling Henry off the ground as he pleads to her deaf ears to be let go. Shaw puts a finger to her ear, “Yeah Finch, I got ‘em, but getting down is going to be a bit of a problem unless we suddenly grow wings.”

 “Hang on Ms Shaw, I’m on the way.”

“You know,” Root sidles up to Shaw, leaning in closer than was really necessary, “I can think of a few uses for that,” Her eyes cast downwards meaningfully to the whip.

Shaw ignores Root’s comment, “Uh, no offense Finch but I need a little more than a getaway car right now. What I need is intel or a plan, not a cripple.”

“Have some faith,” Root butts in, and then leans in further till her lips brush against Shaw’s ear, “I might have a ‘ _gift’_ of sorts if you behave,” she whispers, her fingers trailing down Shaw’s arm and sliding around her wrist.

Shaw turns her head to look at Root, “Really? You wanna do this now while we’re four minutes away from being Swiss cheese?”

“Is there ever a better time between us Sweetie?” Root tilts her head pointedly and then straightens, “I believe our ride is here.”

Shaw notices the wind pick up and follows Root line of sight behind her to the approaching helicopter, “No way…” she mumbles. The little band board their escape vehicle and Shaw, after securing their number pulls on a seat of headphones, “Since when do you have a pilot’s licence?”

“Technically I don’t Ms Shaw,” Harold’s nervous voice floats through her ears as he takes off above the city.

“When’d you learn to fly?” Finch doesn’t respond. “Harold?” Shaw’s voice takes on a warning tone, “You _do_ know how to fly this thing right?”

“In theory. Yes.”

“In THEORY?! What the hell does that mean!”

“Please Ms Shaw, don’t yell at me I’m trying to concentrate.”

“But-”

Root’s hand slides high across her thigh and Shaw stops to glare at her for interrupting but when she goes to remove the offending limb Root simply entwines their fingers and refuses to let Shaw shake her off, “Some questions are best left unanswered Sameen,” Root smiles.

Shaw huffs and leaves their hands be, watching Harold and their distance above the building closely.

 Root tries to wait a while before asking so as to seem casual but a desire burns in her to know, "So Sameen, when did you learn to use a whip?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a little something I came up with last night ^.^  
>  ~~formatting this took a while cos someone forgot the order of opening and closing html tags >.~~

“You know you could have left out the details of your psycho sex life and the story would have been even better.” Fusco looks mighty displeased, as though someone has just thrown up all over the table in front of them instead of recounting a narrow escape from death.

Root puts down her glass of wine and flicks a lock of hair away from her face as she leans forward, “Now where would the fun be if I didn’t make you squirm once in a while?”

“Your girlfriend over there does that just fine on her own, do you really need to make this more uncomfortable for everyone?” Fusco turns to Reese who is sitting beside him, “This is why we can’t have nice things you know.”

“Hey don’t drag me into this, you’re the one who asked who had the best rescue story. You should know better.”

“That wasn’t even exciting…” Fusco mumbles into a bite of steak.

“It was for me,” Root tilts her head to look over fondly at Shaw, who, is blatantly ignoring the conversation in favour of saving the meat on her plate from an invading salad leaf that should never have been there in the first place.

“Ugh, please, save the mushy stuff for when I’m not around to see it. Come on, you gotta have a better story than that. Hell, _I_ have better stories than that and I’m just a regular old cop!”

“Well, there was the time Shaw fell out a helicopter,” Reese comments idly while flagging down a waiter.

“Don’t remind me,” Finch finally contributes to the conversation, slipping some food to Bear who hasn’t stopped whining since they walked into the restaurant. The wait staff had initially refused the canine entrance but it turns out with enough money you really can get away with anything.

“Did I hear you right?” Fusco questions with his mouth still full of food, “ _Shaw_ , Miss Military Scary Pants, _fell_ out a helicopter?”

Shaw’s head whips up and her eyes focus immediately on him as she points her steak knife at him, “I did not _fall out_ I was thrown out. There’s a difference.”

Fusco couldn’t help but laugh, “I never thought I’d hear you get ‘thrown’ anywhere!” _Unless it’s against a wall by Root._ He regrets the thought as soon as it enters his mind.

> _The souped up soldier tears himself from the seat and lunges as Shaw in a drug fuelled rage, pinning her to the metal floor where something digs into her back. Shaw immediately fights back, one hand catching the fist mid-air that was trying to slam her unconscious while the other strikes weak spots and pressure points, but it proves ineffective. She switches tactics quickly but as she tries to throw the soldier off her, Root appears over them both and puts him in a headlock. This only further provokes the rage into madness and the soldier slams his elbow into her solar plexus, then, when her grip slackens he savagely grabs her arm and pulls it behind her, pushing upwards and waiting for the tell-tale ‘click’ of dislocation._

> _Shaw hears Roots gasp, even through the rushing wind of the open helicopter. She kicks the back of the soldier's legs with the intent of knocking him flat on his back but instead he falls on top of Root, her head slamming into the metal wall behind the seats they were previously strapped into. The soldier rounds on Shaw with a roar, distracting her with a wild right hook only to fist her shirt and shove her towards the ‘door’ of the helicopter with enough force that her body slides right over the edge of the airborne vehicle._

> _She doesn’t hear Root’s petrified scream._

“Yes, I think you left me partially deaf after that particular mission, Miss Groves.” Finch throws in.

“Well Harry there’s nothing wrong with partial deafness,” Root chimes with a smug smile at her own joke.

“Hey hey, whoa whoa go back to the part where Miss Congeniality was thrown out of a helicopter. Now THAT sounds like a good story. How the hell did you get out of that one?” Fusco was determined that if he was going to be stuck spending his Christmas eve-eve with the FBI’s most wanted, he was going to get the good gossip. Especially after all they put him through.

“It was no big deal,” Shaw pipes up, standing up and leaning over the table to swipe Fusco’s steak from his plate, “A cracked up soldier pushed me out of the helicopter but I caught the landing skid.”

“While Finch was flying,” Reese adds.

“You people have no concept of story telling do ya?” Fusco complains at the lack of set up, detail and execution of the recounted tale, “Oi! Give me back my steak!” He reaches across the table and the moment his hand touches Shaw’s plate, she’s pulling it back towards her and poised to stab the offending appendage with her steak knife.

“You weren’t eating it.” Shaw challenges, head tilted and ready for a fight.

Fusco decides he’d rather keep his fingers than the steak and releases the plate, “I call bull. There’s no way that happened.”

“It did,” Reese smiled. He _smiled_. Although, it was closer to one of his self-depreciating ‘I’m about to something reckless and stupid to save someone else’ smirks. Close enough.

“Nah, I think you’re just yanking my chain.”

“Oooh, kinky Lionel,” Root quips before anyone can respond, “but I don’t think anyone wants to uh, yank your chain.”

“Well now I’m offended Cocoa Puffs, I have a kid you know.” Fusco side eyes Reese’s fries and steals one, “Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me how in the hell the steak thief survives falling from a helicopter.”

“I told you, landing skids.” Shaw interrupts as Root was about to speak.

> _Shaw tumbles over the edge of the helicopter sideways, hands searching wildly for anything to hold onto when her body hits the landing skid. She almost falls again but is able to get an arm either side of the metal beam and ends up hanging a few hundred feet from the ground._

> _Shaw refuses to look down or even think about insanely lucky she is. Shaw switches her grip so both her hands are facing the same way and then with immense effort against the wind resistance, swings a leg up and hooks her foot around a supporting pole. She uses the position for leverage and works her way into a sitting position around the supporting pole, hugging it with one arm and reaching up into the helicopter with the other to feel around for a hand hold. Shaw remembers the anchor points in the floor primarily used for repelling and safety lines and tries to find one of those._

> _Instead, a hand grabs her arm making Shaw look up. Root is there, a HUGE smile on her face and- are those tears? No, it’s probably the fast moving air getting to her tear ducts, “Come on Shaw, stop hanging around and get in here.” she reads Root’s lips and rolls her eyes. She knows Roots penchant for flirting, cheesy lines and inappropriateness but couldn’t she at least wait until she wasn’t hanging off the side of a moving helicopter?_

> _Shaw takes Root’s arm and grabs the cargo net that separates them from the pilots seat and together they pull Shaw back inside. Root almost forgets to be surprised that for a brief moment Shaw let her hold her life in her hands. Never one to waste an opportunity, Root pulls Shaw purposefully on top of her, and yelling to Harold that she has Shaw._

> _“Now that I’ve got you, I’m not letting go,” She speaks directly into Shaw’s ear to be heard over the wind, her hands groping Shaw’s back._

> _Shaw doesn’t get the chance to roll her eyes or groan because the second Root is finished speaking, she’s kissing her._

“Shaw is being modest,” Root translates, “While-”

“Um, hello? Sociopath remember? I don’t do ‘modest’.”

Fusco scoffs, “No kiddin’.”

Root continues as if she weren’t interrupted, “While the soldier was busy fighting Shaw I got my taser and after their fisticuffs I was able to subdue him. So, with the threat neutralised I was able to help pull Shaw back into the helicopter,” Root finished, but then added as an afterthought, “You know, she was sitting on the landing skid like it was a park bench, just, chillin there.”

“I assure you the only ‘chill’ there was in the air.” Finch throws in.

“I concur.” Shaw adds around a mouthful of salad.

“Wait, are you admitting to actually having feelings?” Reese teases.

“Of course not, I meant that hanging off the side of a helicopter without guidelines is not my idea of a fun time.” _But the hot sex afterwards definitely was._ Shaw thinks and almost smirks to herself as she recalls the feeling of Root finger nails raking gorges down her back,

“I gotta say, I’m surprised, that sounds like exactly the type of thing you’d wanna do. Your idea of fun is the psycho side of wild.” Fusco comments.

Now Shaw does smile a little, “Oh you have _no_ idea. Say, did Reese ever tell you about the time I pulled his ass out of a fire that he lit and managed to trap himself in?”

**Author's Note:**

> so i found this thing where you can 'tip' people? and it's like, you buy them a coffee- although I prefer hot chocolate (strictly voluntary of course!) here's my link if you're interested ^.^ ko-fi.com/A76129H


End file.
